Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan

by Peter von Bleichert

  Each hovercraft docked at a tire-lined concrete wharf and disembarked its team of Chinese operators, who sprinted for the terminal’s power distribution grid and fresh water manifold. Pushed by three ducted propellers, a huge hovercraft trudged past the breakwater, passing by a quay stacked with multi-colored containers waiting to be loaded on ships, trains, and trucks. Then the hovercraft lined up with a boat ramp. Big propellers reversed and blasted, slowing and stopping the Chinese hovercraft on the ramp. The craft’s bow door opened. Crab amphibious armored personnel carriers and a Dragon Turtle light tank scuttled out and climbed the seaweed-covered incline. The two smaller hovercrafts turned and led the larger one from the harbor.

  The Crabs and the Dragon Turtle sped for the main wharf; a concrete appendage sized to accommodate modern container ships, and positioned themselves by the wharf’s travelling gantry crane. Assault squads dismounted. The all-clear was given and two big troop transport ships prepared to dock.

  The ships came in fast for their size, and kicked up mud and sand as they slowed and paralleled the wharf. Lines were secured and gangways lowered. Beating their best practice time, 800 Chinese marines disembarked. At the port’s southern perimeter, amphibious armored personnel carriers, light tanks, and infantry fighting vehicles swam ashore and scrambled their way up the muddy embankment. They fanned out and secured the flanks and the terminal’s perimeter road, and established a strongpoint at Highway #71, blocking the major north-south artery, the most likely route for a Taiwanese counterattack. Vigorous Dragons swooped in and flew menacingly low over the water, making their presence known. They screamed over the Greek ship. The sound and spectacle sent her officers ducking again. Down the coast, the Chinese amphibious assault on Mailiao was equally successful. It was on the sleepy Taiwanese island of Liuqiu that unexpectedly fierce resistance was met, however.

  ◊◊◊◊

  Coastal Huandao Road overlooked the long beach on Liuqiu’s eastern shore. Civilians—fishermen mostly—had been organized by the island’s military police unit. It was on Huandao Road that they watched, peering out to sea through binoculars. With lawn chairs, smoky grills, and full coolers, the beach watch had become a social gathering where they discussed war and politics, and took turns scanning the calm horizon. Although Chinese ships passed frequently, none had yet turned for Liuqiu. Speaking his native Lamai dialect, one lookout reported all clear with a walkie-talkie and put his eye back to his hobby telescope. Sandy, serene beaches sprawled below the cliffs upon which he was perched.

  They had been prepared with firing positions and ammunition caches. Announced and discussed in the town square, the plan for defense comprised a reaction force of men and weapons able to rapidly mobilize, deploy, and employ to counter an attack originating from any direction. The coastal road that circled the kidney-shaped island was perfect for getting the small force of trucks, tanks, and infantry to the right spot, while paths in the wooded hills facilitated ambushes and strategic retreats. Although the enemy could assault Liuqiu from any compass point, most expected a landing on the flat, open eastern beach. The lookout again focused the telescope, and noticed that several silhouettes had appeared on the horizon. They were small boats with hunched shapes aboard, he noted. He clicked his walkie-talkie and reported. The sound of motors arrived on the breeze.

  Taiwanese military police, stationed in the nearby harbor, jumped into their vehicles and sped off. They then manned their trench positions and weapons, and readied heavy machineguns and anti-tank missiles. A single Brave Tiger main battle tank joined the deployment, clattering up the hill and positioning itself into a prepared revetment that protected its hull and provided a clear field of fire over the beach. Taiwanese soldiers and militiamen draped camouflage netting over the tank, and set machinegun crews and snipers, to over-watch on the flanks. Mortar crews elevated their tubes to predetermined settings. In a trench line that zigzagged, soldiers braced their rifles, pressing their butts into their shoulders. Having hurried, the Taiwanese now awaited that which became inevitable.

  Chinese pathfinders weaved through the breakwater and came ashore in rubber dinghies, dragging their boats onto the sand. The Chinese marines spread out and dropped prone. With the area seemingly quiet, they fired a flare that climbed to the sky and arced. This signal invited the main force to commence landings.

  The rumble of diesel engines arose from the darkened horizon. Packed with Chinese marines, a line of landing craft emerged from the dusk and sped toward the beach, their square bows smacking the waves. Within the open hold of one craft, a man vomited on the back of another, starting a chain reaction of puke. Chinese amphibious armor, bobbing on the rolling surface, followed these craft. Whistles were blown amid “Beach in sight” screams. The flat bottoms of the landing craft rode up onto the beach, crunching on rocks and sand, and bow ramps crashed down. The Taiwanese opened fire.

  One of the rectangular craft became a flesh blender as Taiwanese heavy machinegun fire ricocheted within. Another disgorged screaming Chinese marines into the surf, and guns up on the bluff hosed them down. More landing craft scraped ashore, spilling men onto the beach. These Chinese invaders took several steps before the cliff-top machineguns traversed their way. Mortar rounds burst in the air and on the beach, showering the invaders with hot needles of metal. Men fell beneath this unnatural rain, and a sickly pinkish foam spread over the gentle surf. A few Chinese scampered to a beach boulder and fired blindly back at the wooded hill. A Chinese Dragon Turtle light tank dragged itself onto the beach.

  The Dragon Turtle fired its coaxial machinegun, raking the dunes. A Taiwanese soldier at the edge of the woods aimed his tripod-mounted TOW missile at the front of the Chinese light tank and pulled the trigger. The TOW arrived and served the enemy tank with a shaped charge warhead that pushed high-velocity molten copper through the tank’s dense steel shell, doing bloody murder within. The tank stopped and smoldered at water’s edge. High above the beach, from the safety of its revetment, the Taiwanese tank fired its main gun and pummeled enemy landing craft with armor piercing rounds. It then switched to deadly ball shot to blast the Chinese marines. Those lucky or skilled enough to make it to the dunes ran into mines that exploded before them, scattering ball bearings and shrapnel, leaving only stained boots where men once ran. Shrieking across the beach, a Chinese Fantan strike aircraft dove in and strafed the overlook.

  A Stinger missile shot from the forest canopy knocked off the Fantan’s vertical stabilizer. The Fantan spun in and exploded on a shallow reef. Two more Chinese attack aircraft swept in to drop cluster bombs on the trench line. One dropped a laser-guided bomb on the Taiwanese tank as more Fantans came in low over the water and screamed over the landing craft and amphibious armor, tossing cylinders into the woods. Gelatinous gasoline—napalm—ignited and sucked the oxygen from the air, suffocating those it did not incinerate. The Taiwanese were stunned by the close air support during which several more landing craft had sneaked in and deposited marines on the beach.

  Liuqiu’s commander had suffered many casualties and his one tank had been destroyed. He initiated a well-practiced retreat. Under rocket and machinegun fire, the Taiwanese abandoned their positions. Snipers provided final cover fire as the last of the defenders melted into the woods or sprinted to camouflaged vehicles and sped away. With his remaining men safe, the Taiwanese commander jumped into a last pickup truck. He flipped open a cell phone, dialed a number, and pushed [Send].

  Buried beneath the beach’s sand was a 2,000-pound aerial bomb, connected to another cell phone. This cell phone rang and triggered the buried aerial bomb. Everything above the improvised explosive device disappeared in fire, sand and flesh raining back down. The flood tide quickly claimed the large crater as a pool. Beneath a small black mushroom cloud, the beach became momentarily quiet, and a seabird landed to pick at the carnage. Diesel engines rumbled once more as the Chinese landing continued. Amphibious armored personnel carriers, light tanks, and landing craft that carried trucks and
marines arrived to claim the beach and cliff. They staked out the shore road and moved on to the nearby harbor.

  The Chinese spread out and secured key junctions in town. The Chinese troop transport Xuefengshan—Snow-peaked Mountain—lingered offshore, where she finally signaled and turned for Liuqiu’s small port. Twenty minutes later, Xuefengshan had docked and unloaded 200 marines, ammunition, light vehicles, supplies, and a Favorit surface-to-air missile battery that was hurriedly set up beside the harbor’s riprap breakwater.

  ◊◊◊◊

  General Zhen picked at a dinner tray resting on maps arrayed across his desk. With scant appetite, Zhen instead poured another cup of coffee—his sixth so far today—and walked to the window. Songshan, now an efficient Chinese base, operated smoothly as airplanes and helicopters came and went, a line of MiG 29 Fulcrums took on fuel and weapons, and, bathed in yellow spotlights, paratroopers ate at a kitchen trailer. Knowing battle lay in front of them, they then cleaned weapons and rested on cots. Zhen took a shaky sip of coffee, stood, and went to a map pinned to a wall. On it he saw red markers, covering Kaohsiung, Liuqiu, and Mailiao. With these ports secure, he strategized, we can shift from aerial to maritime supply. Zhen removed a green pushpin from the mainland port of Xiamen and stuck it into the Taiwan Strait.

  The pin represented the Star of Peace, a large commercial liner drafted into the service of the republic. Designed to carry 400 passengers, Star of Peace now managed 1,000 soldiers and their gear, crammed aboard. A tank landing ship sailed with the liner, and bore 200 men from the 164th Marine Brigade, their kit, artillery, and several light tanks. Although Zhen knew the air force and navy had sunk the last of Taiwan’s capital ships, he worried about enemy submarines not yet been accounted for. These was why the liner and tank landing ship—both bound for the port of Bali at Taiwan’s northern tip—were under escort of the frigate Anshun, as well as various small patrol craft. Zhen looked at his watch. In two hours, the ships would arrive and unload. Once marshaled in port, the marines and soldiers the ships transported would move through the occupied zone of the Taiwanese capital, secure the strategic intersection of Sun Yat Sen Freeway#1 in Wugu, and then establish a fire base in the parking lot of a shopping center next to the freeway’s cloverleaf interchange. From this shopping center, Zhen’s force would be able to police access to the city center and control downtown without actually having to occupy it.

  Zhen was proud of his plan. He had studied many urban battles, especially the defense of Stalingrad by Soviet Georgy Marshall Zhukov, and therefore knew to avoid engaging the enemy in difficult urban warfare where tanks lost their advantage, and where his men lacked experience and proficiency. Unlike Friedrich Paulus and the German 6th Army, Zhen would not be drawn into house-to-house fighting, but chose instead to bypass and choke off areas of resistance, much like the Americans when they fought Imperial Japan in the Pacific. This standoff plan, he reminded himself, will minimize the impact of war upon the capital, on the local citizenry, and the Taiwanese economy. Furthermore, this force would be available to relieve pressure on the Toucian River Front where his forces had seemingly stalled. General Zhen lit the first of his two traditional after-meal cigarettes, taking a long drag. He checked his watch. He was due in Beijing for a conference, but Zhen hated such bureaucratic distractions. Perhaps the president might accept a videoconference? His mind returned to a familiar place: the contemplation of strategy; and looked at a cluster of blue pushpins at the edge of the map. He growled contemptuously: “The American navy.”

  ◊◊◊◊

  With the Taiwan Straits closed, the Malaysian-flagged container ship Bunga Teratai Satu—Lotus Flower One—steamed 60 miles east of Taiwan. A colored quilt of stacked containers, each full of automobile, computer, and television parts bound for Pusan, South Korea, covered her vast decks. The captain pushed the engines, steaming hard and fast to pass waters in turmoil. He noted the fuel readout and engine power levels, and cursed that they were burning twice as much fuel as usual for the run. The bridge officers reiterated the reluctant acceptance of safety over profit. Then, a blinding light filled Bunga Teratai Satu’s bridge.

  The officers shifted nervously as the light grew brighter and a rumbling vibration swelled. The light extinguished and a jet roared low over the container ship’s bridge, close enough that some of the sailors instinctively ducked. With a lighted US NAVY on its side, a Super Hornet passed again and wagged its wing lights at the mammoth merchantman. On Bunga Teratai Satu’s radar screen, at its outer edge, appeared a large green mass, surrounded by several other, smaller ones.

  Twelve thousand yards to the north, the American nuclear supercarrier Ronald Reagan turned into the wind as she conducted night flight operations. Protecting the goliath were the destroyers Decatur, Gridley, and Mahan, the cruiser Lake Champlain, the frigate Thach, and the littoral combat ship Fort Worth. Besides having a combat air patrol up, the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group had two Seahawk helicopters out on anti-submarine warfare patrol. Furthermore, a Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown out of Japan and, flying a mid-altitude racetrack pattern, watched over the vicinity. The American sub hunter, a grey and windowless military variant of the popular 737 twin-engine airliner, carried Barracuda torpedoes, mines, and SLAM anti-ship missiles, and could detect magnetic distortions with its tail boom. The Poseidon leveled out for the next leg of its search pattern. High above, a deuce of Ronald Reagan’s Super Hornets kept a weather eye open for bandits. Besides the Poseidon, Ronald Reagan’s anti-submarine picket included the destroyer Decatur. She sprinted ahead of the group, and then slowed to a drift to listen to the water with her towed sonar. In Decatur’s combat information center, the computer and sonarman analyzed the collected sounds.

  Decatur’s sonarman adjusted a dial on his console, and typed commands at a keyboard. Then he held his headphones tight to his ears. Among background noise and the slashing of the Malaysian merchantman’s twin four-bladed propellers, he thought he heard a low thumping. However, the computer insisted the sound belonged to a fully loaded container ship. Although trained to trust technology, the sonarman’s human ear told him there was something else there, something the machine had missed.

  Beneath the keel of Bunga Teratai Satu, matching the gargantuan cargo ship’s speed and course, the Chinese nuclear attack submarine Changzheng 6 prowled.

  “Sir, American surface group includes an aircraft carrier,” Changzheng 6’s sonar station operator reported excitedly.

  “Load bow tubes with wake-homing torpedoes. Fire control, get me a solution on that carrier immediately,” Captain Kun ordered, and rocked on his heels. With hands behind his back, Kun announced tactics. His chief officer concurred and pushed the orders down the chain. Changzheng 6 would ripple fire torpedoes, reload, fire again, and then run for the deep. The men had drilled for this, and had the procedure down to mere minutes, all without compromising safety. From under Bunga Teratai Satu, Changzheng 6 shot six Sturgeon heavy torpedoes in a tight fan pattern. The tubes were then rapidly reloaded with cone-shaped Squall torpedoes. In the submarine’s weapons room—a warren of pipes and valves—the supervising torpedoman reported to the attack center and clicked his stopwatch. He and the men had made record time.

  The VA-111Shkval (Squalls) spit from the hull by a blast of compressed air. Tail fins snapped out and rocket motors ignited with a pop. Combustion gas shunted to the front of the weapon where it exited to form a bubble around the casing, a super cavity. Flying through water as though it were air, the Squalls quickly reached over 200 knots. From beneath Bunga Teratai Satu’s keel, Changzheng 6 crash-dived into the abyss. Coming about in a sharp turn, her seven-bladed screw bit the black water to push her deep.

  A red light blinked on Lake Champlain’s sonar station and green bands cascaded down its screen.

  “Holy shit,” the American sonarman exclaimed, as he was almost physically shoved backward by surprise. “Torpedo, torpedo, torpedo,” he called out, and then steadied himself in the ch
air to study the range of new sounds. There were several high-pitched screws and a strange sizzling sound like steaks on a grill. A new frequency band appeared on the display. The sonarman heard the familiar sounds of a nuclear reactor. “Certsub,” he declared. “Bearing: one-eight-zero. Range: 11,000 yards. She’s diving.” Captain Ferlatto ordered the launch of several ASROCs—anti-submarine rockets that deliver lightweight torpedoes. The ASROCS left Lake Champlain’s stern missile deck. They glowed as they flew down the bearing of the enemy torpedoes and straight at the panicked Malaysian merchantman. Lake Champlain turned to zero-nine-zero—due east—and her turbines came to full power. The frigate Thach came hard over to zero-zero-zero and accelerated, too. Ronald Reagan and the destroyers Decatur, Gridley, and Mahan turned to zero-four-five, with throttles opened. While the big ships ran defense, the littoral combat ship Fort Worth swung around and planed like a speedboat toward the contact. Decatur’s bowsprit watch spotted the smoky phosphorescent bubble trail of the approaching Squalls and informed the bridge. Decatur’s captain radioed the rest of the group before he maneuvered the ship to evade the high-speed torpedoes. With the sizzling sound determined to be rocket-propelled Squalls, Decatur’s sonarman localized the other slower torpedoes, matching their acoustic signature to that of a 53-65KE heavy wake-homing torpedo. More Goddamn Russian fish, the technician realized. Communicating with the supercarrier, Decatur’s captain ordered: “Deploy the Nixie.” A giant reel mounted to the American guided-missile destroyer’s stern deck paid out a float and line. The float created a second wake behind Decatur, and it included speakers that broadcast the simulated engine and reactor noise of an American supercarrier into the water. As Decatur went fishing, the Poseidon sub hunter powered in and flew down the threat axis.